Faculty Advisor

In Model United Nations, the faculty advisor is the school- or university-affiliated educator who formally sponsors a delegation. Conferences almost universally require that secondary school teams—and most collegiate teams—register through a named faculty advisor, who serves as the legal and institutional point of contact between the host conference and the sending school.

Responsibilities typically include:

• Registration and finances: submitting school registration forms, paying delegation fees, and managing travel budgets.
• Chaperoning: accompanying minors to the conference venue, enforcing the conference code of conduct, and being on call during sessions and socials.
• Academic oversight: approving position papers, coordinating research, and in many programs assigning course credit or extracurricular recognition.
• Recruitment and training: organizing tryouts, weekly practices, mock committees, and parliamentary procedure drills.
• Awards logistics: receiving delegation-wide recognition such as Best Large Delegation or Best Small Delegation on behalf of the school at closing ceremonies.

Faculty advisors are distinguished from head delegates, who are students leading the team internally, and from conference staff (Secretariat, dais, crisis directors), who run the simulation itself. At large circuits such as NHSMUN, NAIMUN, HMUN, WorldMUN, and NMUN, advisors often have dedicated lounges, briefings, and feedback sessions with the Secretary-General.

Some programs—particularly in the United States—treat the role as a paid coaching stipend position, while in many countries it is uncompensated volunteer work by a teacher of history, civics, English, or political science. Universities sometimes replace the faculty advisor with a graduate student coach or a travel team president, though a faculty signatory is still typically required for institutional liability and funding.

Conference codes of conduct, such as those published by NMUN and Harvard's WorldMUN, generally hold the faculty advisor accountable for delegate behavior, making the role both pedagogical and supervisory.